North Carolina did not consider the counterfeiting of its paper money or the passing of the same when forged as a light offense, since death without benefit of clergy was provided as the punishment in the act of 1714 for emitting £24,000 and in that of 1722 for issuing £12,000.1 It was, however, far from easy to capture counterfeiters and passers and still more difficult to secure their conviction, as is shown in numerous instances. Thus, when in October, 1722, Joseph Oates was arrested on a warrant issued by the chief justice and brought before a Court of Oyer and Terminer at Edenton to answer to a complaint of one Thomas Lovick that Oates had passed a false bill of the province, the matter could not be proved, so that the prisoner was released.2

Again, in the spring of 1724 the General Assembly caused several counterfeit bills to be lodged with the clerk of the Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Edenton in order that the Attorney General might prosecute the offender whenever sufficient evidence or information might be forthcoming.3 At the time nothing came to light but at the next sessions from July 28 to August 4 a certain Luke White was brought before the bar on the charge of having, on or about July 6, passed a false 7/6 bill. When it was discovered that he could neither read nor write and when he furthermore swore the bill on William Holliday, White was dismissed and a warrant issued for the arrest of Holliday,4 who apparently was never captured.

In the following year a forged £3 bill, allegedly passed by James Spier (or Speers), was exhibited by the Precinct Court of Bertie in Albemarle County to a Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Edenton in March and April. At the same time the Precinct Court of Bertie turned over to Attorney General Thomas Boyd a 2/— bill altered to 20/— and a counterfeit 7/6 bill. Edward Howard of Bertie Precinct was then indicted for altering the 2/— note and passing it, but a petit jury acquitted him, whereupon the counterfeit was lodged in the office of the clerk to be used as evidence against John Williams, also of Bertie Precinct. Williams was taken into custody but, as there was not sufficient evidence, was released on bail (£500furnished by Williams and £250 each furnished by James Castellaw and Francis Pugh) to appear at the next sessions in July, 1725. When, however, no one appeared to prosecute him or testify against him, he was released, as was James Spier, also for want of evidence.5

Before long the authorities at last succeeded in detecting some counterfeiters, although the ultimate result of their endeavors was discouraging. In July, 1726, a planter named John Armstrong was brought before the court at Edenton on a warrant of the Attorney General for having passed two counterfeit 10/— bills to Edmund Smithwick. Armstrong nevertheless managed to convince the court that he had received the bad money from James Kelly, who delivered them to Armstrong from Thomas Oldner of Bertie Precinct in payment of a debt. At first suspicion fell upon Kelly, especially since he had likewise passed a spurious £5 bill to Thomas Pierce, Jr. Yet Kelly stoutly maintained that he had obtained all three bills from Oldner, so a search was made for Oldner, while Kelly was released on bail, £100 provided by himself and £50 apiece furnished by his sureties, Edward Moore and John Armstrong. At the court held in October the Attorney General was prepared to prosecute Oldner, but that individual was not to be found and apparently was not taken later. It seems likely that Oldner was guilty and also may have been associated with John Richardson, who was arrested at this time on a charge of counterfeiting the current money but broke prison and made good his escape.6

Enforcement of the law was made more difficult through the laxness of magistrates in Bertie and Beaufort, some of whom were persons of very ill Fame and Character. Thus when William Larner was arrested in 1733 for forging the paper currency he was admitted to bail by Benjamin Peyton, J. P., of Beaufort. Larner put up a bond of £1,000 for his appearance in court, with Robert Peyton, Sr., and Edward Travis as sureties, each in the amount of £500. Justice Peyton, however, instead of making return of this recognizance, sent in one acknowledged only by Larner without sureties, so it is not surprising that there is no record of Larner’s appearance at the sessions.7

So troublesome had become the flood of counterfeits that when the Council met in the Court House in Brunswick on November 2, 1734, Governor Gabriel Johnston informed its members that since his arrival in the province he had been acquainted by several of the principal merchants and traders of the many and great inconveniencies to trade and commerce caused by the great multiplicity of counterfeit bills of credit issued by Vagabond and Idle people passing from one part of the Government to another. It was decided that Johnston should issue a proclamation commanding all persons to assist in apprehending those who were guilty and offering a reward of £50 for the bringing to justice of anyone who should be convicted of the offense, while a royal pardon was promised to any of the accomplices of such criminals who should discover one or more of them so that they be taken and convicted, provided only that such discovery be made within two months from the date of the proclamation. The Provost Marshal, moreover, was charged with having the proclamation published at the courthouse door in every precinct in North Carolina and with having a copy affixed to each such door.8

On January 15, 1735, Governor Johnston addressed the Council and House of Burgesses, warning the members that the matter of the currency of their bills could no longer be neglected without the entire Ruin of the Country. He pointed out that originally their notes were on a very precarious footing but that now the situation was infinitely worse because of the great number of counterfeits spread into all parts of the province by the villanous Arts of wicked and ill disposed persons, and to the utter undoing of many poor industrious Families. The governor charged his hearers with finding a proper remedy for so great an evil and urged upon them, since the people could not carry on their dealings without a paper currency, the necessity of preserving the credit of the same and preventing the industrious planter from being robbed of the fruits of his labor by the Tricks and Frauds of profligate and abandoned persons.9

The House, in replying on January 20 to Johnston’s speech, laid the blame for the bad state of the currency on the late corrupt Administration, which neither had the taxes collected in the proper fashion nor suffered the vile persons who counterfeited the bills to be prosecuted. An act for regulating the currency was passed on February 13, and the proclamation bore fruit within the two months that the offer of the reward was to be in effect, for on February 27 a claim for £100 in rewards for the discovery of two counterfeiters was approved by the House of Burgesses.10

The New Englanders had discovered long before that the best formula for catching counterfeiters was to offer a reward, and a pardon to an accomplice who would denounce the others in the gang. The success which attended the issuance of Governor Johnston’s proclamation in 1734 must have led to a similar proclamation late in 1739 or early in 1740, for on March 4, 1740, a committee on claims, meeting in Edenton, received the claim of Thomas Brown for £50 as a reward for apprehending Thomas Hamilton Scott, accused of making and uttering counterfeit bills of North Carolina.11 Scott had also been making bills of South Carolina and was taken into custody at Pon Pon, whence Lewis Lorimer, one of the constables of Charleston was sent to bring him to that city. Scott either committed suicide or, more likely, was killed in an attempt to escape, and along with him died Lewis Jones, apparently an accomplice, for Alexander Stewart, Coroner of Berkley County, held inquests on the bodies of the two men.12 Three of Scott’s accomplices, incidentally, one of them Lawrence Wolfersten, a counterfeiter from Pennsylvania who had been convicted there in 1727,13 were arrested at Winyaw and committed to jail by Justice Thomas La Roche, who later had them removed to prison in Charleston.14

In 1745 the Assembly decided that new legislation was needed, so an act was passed for the punishment of those who should counterfeit, forge, alter, deface, or knowingly pass such counterfeited bills. One convicted thereof for the first offense was to be set in the pillory for two hours, have his ears nailed to the pillory and then cut off, while a second offense was to be punished as felony without benefit of clergy.15

An act of 1748 for emitting £21,300 set the same penalties, save that for the first offense, in addition to pillorying and cropping, the court, at its discretion, might also punish with whipping, not to exceed forty lashes.16

The Assembly, in October of the following year, put into force a number of statutes of the Kingdom of England, three of which were concerned with counterfeiters of coin: 1 Mary Ch 6, providing that counterfeiting of foreign coins current in the kingdom should be adjudged treason; 1 & 2 Philip and Mary Ch. 11, providing that importers of counterfeit coin into the realm should be punished as traitors; 5 Elizabeth Ch. 11, providing that the clipping of coins, for gain’s sake, should be high treason.17

Only a few years later, in 1752, two persons were executed for treason in accordance with the above legislation of 1749. In the summer of 1752 a counterfeiting scheme was hatched in Virginia. Patrick Moore, a tailor, was living in that province, where he worked at his trade at the house of Richard Brooker in Gloucester County. A certain Daniel Johnston, alias Dixon, a chemist or doctor, and William Jillet, a blacksmith, frequently went to Brooker’s home. If these two told the truth, Moore was the promoter of the counterfeiting venture. Be that as it may, sometime in June Brooker gave Moore a small boat with a supply of provisions sufficient to bring the tailor, Johnston and Jillet, with their bellows, hammers, molds, and other materials for making money, to North Carolina. About the end of June the men went up the Neuse River, where they landed and thence proceeded to the house of Peter Matthews, about thirty miles from New Bern. Near this dwelling, in a great swamp, they set up their forge and prepared molds and other materials for making doubloons, pistoles, pieces of eight, and half pistareens.

By some means the sheriff of the county discovered their undertaking and, acting with great vigilance and industry, captured the coiners at the home of Matthews, who was also apprehended on suspicion of being concerned in the affair. Some of the doubloons, a pistole, pieces of eight, and half pistareens were found on the persons of the three coiners but the money was so badly done as not to be imposed easily upon anyone. Apparently, however, the coins had not been completed, for, although they were very exact in similitude and size, they were much wanting in color, so that it was believed that the proper coloring of them was to have been the finishing stroke.

The prisoners were locked up in the jail at New Bern, a prison which had previously been remarkable for letting its inmates escape, but the sheriff kept a watch around the building each night and foiled several attempts which were made by the counterfeiters to break out. They came up for trial at the General Court which ended early in October. Moore turned evidence for the Crown against his associates, Matthews was acquitted, and Jillet and Johnston were found guilty of treason and condemned to death.

Some ten days later the condemned men, together with another criminal named David Smith, alias Griffith, were executed. They were accompanied to the gallows by the Reverend Mr. Lopierre, who had also visited the men in jail. The convicted coiners appeared very penitent and expressed much sorrow and contrition for their wrongdoing. Johnston, it was reported, died a staunch Roman Catholic and was very earnest and pathetic in his prayers for the friends and followers of Lord Lovat, Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and all the rebels who suffered in the rebellion, while he heartily prayed for the continuance of that noble Spirit which he hop’d was yet alive in Scotland among the Well-wishers of the Pretender.18

As regards counterfeiters of the bills of credit, an act of 1754 for the emission of £40,000 contained the same penalties as were included in the act of 1748,19 but subsequent acts of 1756 (for emitting £3,400), of 1757 (for emitting £5,306), of 1758 (for emitting £7,000), and of 1758 (for emitting £4,500) all made counterfeiting and passing a felony without benefit of clergy.20

On February 3, 1764, Governor Arthur Dobbs, alarmed by the quantities of counterfeit bills in circulation, called upon the Assembly for new legislation to cope with the situation.21 In response to his appeal a bill for the more effectual detecting and punishing the makers and utterers of Counterfeit Bill Money was introduced and passed in March.22 In the preamble to the act, which was to be in force for two years, it was set forth that great numbers of evil persons in the frontier parts of the province had banded together and were supporting one another in committing murder and other felonies, as well as in counterfeiting the paper currency of North Carolina and Virginia and in fraudulently and deceitfully imposing their bad money on the honest, industrious inhabitants of the colony, in defiance of authority and in open violation and contempt of all laws. It was therefore enacted that the penalty of death might be imposed on any person convicted of counterfeiting, or knowingly passing when so forged, the bills of North Carolina or Virginia or base coin or of escaping from prison after being committed for any of the above crimes and then neglecting or refusing to surrender to the sheriff before the last day of the Superior Court which should next follow the court wherein the bill of indictment was found. In every such case the chief justice, or assistant, or the associate judge, should issue proclamations for each county in the district, calling upon the offender to surrender within sixty days after the last day of the court session and stating that unless the offender should give himself up it would be lawful for any Person or Persons to kill and destroy such Offender. If anyone should apprehend an offender who had escaped or neglected to surrender within the sixty days, such a person should be allowed a reward of £30 upon the conviction of the offender.23

The above act was, as has been noted, to be in effect for two years, so in November, 1766, a bill to revive the act was introduced and passed,24 but on June 26, 1767, it was ordered repealed by his Majesty in Council.25

Very likely news of the repeal of the act encouraged counterfeiters, one of whom was an elderly man named Timothy Green. He proceeded to New York and on Tuesday, August 26, 1767, when he had been there but a short time, he applied to Elisha Gallaudet, a well-known engraver of that city, to procure of him plates with which to forge the current money bills of North Carolina, whence he had come. Gallaudet, however, had the would-be-counterfeiter taken before an alderman, who, after examining him and finding two false dollars in his possession, committed him to jail. Green was indicted in the Supreme Court on October 29 for a Misdemeanor, pleaded not guilty, and on October 30 was tried. The jury, without going from the bar, convicted him, and when, on the next day, the attorney general moved for judgment, the court ordered that the prisoner stand in the pillory on Wednesday next for one hour between the hours of ten and twelve in the forenoon and that on Thursday next he be whipped through the town at the cart’s tail and receive thirty-nine lashes on the bare back.26

Even though Timothy Green’s plans were foiled, other counterfeiters were more successful, as is shown by an address made by Governor William Tryon to the legislators on December 7, 1767. Pointing out that the counterfeit bills circulating in the province tended to the most ruinous consequences to the government, he applied for some redress proportioned to the evil. It evidently depreciates, he said, the small remainder of currency in the Country and deprives the Creditor of his just debts, wounds the credit of the public, and what is of further consequence too frequently extends to the impoverishing of families in the exchange of their property for these false bills, too artfully resembling the true for common discernment to detect them.27 A committee of both houses, on January 15, 1768, requested the governor more particularly to state the distress of this Colony, partly occasioned by counterfeit money, and for want of a sufficiency of good paper currency or other medium of Trade.28

Governor Tryon was in sympathy with this request of the legislators, as is shown by the fact that on February 2 he wrote the Earl of Shelburne that the mischiefs arising from the counterfeited proclamation bills then circulating would cease if a new currency were emitted, since the remainder of the money then out would be immediately called in.29 The same day he wrote to Messers Drummond & Co. that, if the royal consent were secured, he was ordered to obtain, in order to prevent counterfeiting, proper copperplates, paper, presses, and other materials. If, he added, by your ingenuity this currency, should it have an existence, can be put out of the knavery of counterfeits, you will render an essential service to the inhabitants of this province who have felt the ruinous effects of the counterfeit currency.30

Had the governor but known it, another threat to the money of North Carolina was in the making and was only narrowly averted. During the second week of February, 1768, the Honorable William Smith, Jr., in New York received a letter from a gentleman in Fairfield, Connecticut, acquainting him that a schooner had lately been at that place, had remained there six weeks with five men on board, that they had passed some counterfeit New York bills, that they came from Rhode Island, and that he imagined they had gone to New York. This intelligence was communicated to the mayor, who immediately sent officers in search of the schooner. They found it just on the point of sailing for North Carolina, as it was thought. On board were arrested Gideon Casey, his two sons, Tibbets Hopkins (the master of the ship) and Daniel Wilcox, alias Chase, while a search of the vessel revealed a small bag containing all the instruments for coining and milling dollars of the years 1763 and 1764, two plates for making North Carolina currency, molds and stamps for making pistareens, recipes for smelting and varnishing metals, and several counterfeit forty shilling New York bills. The men were held in jail and indicted but by April 4 had been acquitted for want of sufficient evidence, an indication that none of the gang would talk. Casey was a capable silversmith of Rhode Island but, like his talented brother Samuel, also a noted silversmith, he could not refrain from counterfeiting and had been convicted of passing false doubloons in Philadelphia in 1752.31

Although the province was mercifully spared the presence of Casey and his accomplices, other criminals were at work, two of whom, Samuel Robert Hall and James Mansfield, were captured in 1768, convicted and sentenced to death for counterfeiting the paper currency. While they were in the jail of Craven County awaiting execution, the speaker and several members of the Assembly, as well as other prominent inhabitants of the province, petitioned the governor on behalf of the two young men, who had formerly been of good character and had been seduced and instigated to commit their crime by John Butcher, a blacksmith, who had made his escape. Governor Tryon, on November 28, 1768, was pleased to pardon the young men and at the same time issued a proclamation offering a reward of £10 for the apprehension of Butcher.32

By the autumn of 1770 counterfeit notes were passing without sufficient question,33 and Governor Tryon informed the council that large sums of the certificates of 1768 had been forged. A proclamation was therefore issued in which a reward of £200 was offered to any informer, except an offender, while the king’s pardon was promised to that offender who should first appear and denounce his accomplices.34 On December 5, Tryon delivered an address to the Council and House in which he stated that the circulation of so large a quantity of counterfeit currency afforded presumption that persons of more considerable property than those of moderate substance had been concerned in the base and dishonorable traffic. The evil, he pointed out, was absolutely destructive of all public credit and operated to the ruin of many honest homes and families. It was his opinion that, if the legislators called upon those who had passed the bad money to declare from whom it was received, by tracing back the counterfeits the authors of the iniquity might be discovered.35

The Council assured the governor that the detection of the counterfeiters was a matter of real concern and that every salutary measure would be taken to punish the guilty.36 The same day, December 10, the House expressed itself to the effect that the great amount of false certificates and proclamation bills in circulation was alarming to the province, injurious to individuals and destructive to public credit. Nothing less than calling in all the paper currency could put an end to the fatal consequences attending so infamous an imposition on the inhabitants, a sentiment which the same body repeated on January 26, 1771.37

The governor had caused Adam Boyd to print two hundred handbills respecting the counterfeit debenture bills and to distribute them, as a result of which some information must have been received. Warrants were issued for the arrest of three suspects, Daniel Duncan of Orange County, George Martin, and John Alston. Duncan was immediately taken but discharged for want of proof. Martin, who was apprehended at the same time, was suffering from an indisposition which made traveling impossible without manifest danger of his life, so it was sometime later that he was taken into custody by Simon Bright and brought before the bar of the House. It is not recorded whether he was convicted or, like Duncan, discharged. There was, at least, some evidence against him, for a certain Philemon Hawkins appeared to testify against him.38 John Alston was not to be found.39

Upon the presentation of sworn evidence other counterfeiters were sought in Granville County and elsewhere, two of whom, Robert Pryor and William Wharton, were arrested and then released on bail for their appearance at the Superior Court of Justice to be held at Hillsboro on March 22, 1771. When, however, it developed that because of the disturbances in the western part of the province the court would not be held at Hillsboro, it became apparent that, unless some extraordinary measures were taken, the two offenders, who were dangerous and clearly guilty, would escape punishment. Richard Henderson therefore petitioned the governor that a special court of oyer and terminer be held at Oxford, in Granville County, where, Henderson believed, it might sit without danger of being obstructed by the Insurgents. The governor and council approved the request and ordered a special commission of oyer and terminer, so that presumably Pryor and Wharton were tried.40

On August 15, 1771, Josiah Martin, the new governor, wrote to the Earl of Hillsborough that the treasurer of the Southern District had agreed to pay Governor Tryon’s warrants by promissory notes, so that a new species of currency had arisen on the faith of public credit. The notes were easier to counterfeit than any previous money, for they bore only one signature, that of the treasurer, and not several, as did all other bills. The various earlier emissions, furthermore, had been widely counterfeited and the evil was so pernicious that it deserved immediate attention. Martin was of the opinion that the only remedy would be the extinction of all former issues and a new emission to replace them and to provide a sufficient currency for the needs of the growing province.41 An act of 1771 authorized the emission of £60,000 in debenture bills to pay the costs of Governor Tryon’s expedition against the insurgents, and the penalty for counterfeiting, altering, or defacing these notes was to be death without benefit of clergy.42

John Alston had been sought in vain in 1770-1771 and had continued his nefarious activity. According to the Virginia Gazette43 on the evening of March 4, 1773, Moses Terry of Halifax County, Virginia, was brought to Williamsburg and committed to jail for passing false bills, a charge to which he pleaded guilty, informing against many others and confessing that he had passed counterfeits which were made by the Allstons in Carolina (who appear to be the great instruments of this horrid plot against the peace and welfare of this country). Another of the Alstons suspected of counterfeiting was Philip, a gunsmith, for whom James Ransom, Jr., sergeant at arms of the House of North Carolina, and four assistants made a determined but fruitless search.44

The House of Burgesses of Virginia, thoroughly alarmed by the counterfeiting of their money in North Carolina, passed an act making it a felony to prepare, engrave, stamp, or print the money of other British colonies or to cause the same to be done or knowingly to pass such bad money. This step was taken because it was supposed that certain evil persons had lately established presses in Virginia for preparing counterfeits of the paper money of other colonies and by that means such forged paper was put into circulation with greater facility and with more security to the authors of the mischief. Reasonably enough, Virginia hoped for a similar action by colonies which did not already have legislation making it a crime to forge the bills of the other provinces. As a subcommittee of the House of Burgesses pointed out, the chief author of the recent counterfeiting of the currency of Virginia was an inhabitant of North Carolina (probably Philip or John Alston was meant).45 Governor Martin of North Carolina warmly commended the policy of the legislature of Virginia in its measures designed to prevent that most baneful crime of counterfeiting the paper currency circulating in the Colonies of America.46

In February, 1773, a bill for the more effectual punishment of Counterfeiters of the Public Debenture Bills of Credit of this Colony and Coin was introduced in the House. The measure was passed both by the Council and House but early in March, when it reached the governor, he withheld his consent.47 In a letter, written on May 30, 1773, to the Earl of Dartmouth, Governor Martin explained that he had rejected the bill because the Criminals marked out to reproach by punishments allotted in this Act and rejected on all hands would lose every sense of shame, become desperate and abandon themselves to the perpetration of every kind of enormity, dreading death (the Law’s utmost penalty) less than existence held at the expense of everything that can make life desirable.48 From this it may be assumed that the bill would have made the counterfeiters outlaws.

Since the governor’s assent had been refused, Mr. Joseph Hewes of Edenton moved early in December, 1773, that he be granted leave to prepare and bring in a bill to prevent the counterfeiting of the paper money of North Carolina and the other British colonies and the gold and silver coin circulating in the province. On December 20 it was introduced and duly passed and approved by the governor.49 The preamble of the act, which was to be in force for five years, stated that it was supposed that presses had been established in North Carolina of late to forge the bills of other provinces. It was judged reasonable that neighboring colonies having intercourse in trade should provide against the debasing of their medium of commerce, and it was also a fact that the laws of the province for the punishment of counterfeiters of the gold and silver coin in circulation were defective. To remedy this situation it was provided that death without benefit of clergy should be the penalty for those who defaced, counterfeited, or altered bills or who knowingly passed counterfeits.50 Governor Martin was delighted with the new law, about which he wrote on July 13, 1774, to the Earl of Dartmouth: I conceive great hopes that it will be attended with the best effects.51

The outbreak of the Revolution could by no means be expected to check counterfeiting, so that, when an emission of bills by North Carolina was authorized in September, 1775, it was provided that any person accused of counterfeiting them should be imprisoned until the next meeting of the Council of Safety and that upon conviction an offender should be punished by death.52 As for Continental currency, Lieutenant Governor Colden, on February 14, 1776, wrote that the British would endeavor to depreciate the Congress paper by throwing in forged notes.53

By June, 1776, information had reached the Council of Safety that counterfeits of the four dollar bills emitted by the Congress held at Hillsboro, had been passed by Benjamin Sheppard of Dobbs County and, when Sheppard was arrested, he could give no satisfactory account of how he obtained the bills and was therefore ordered to give a bond of £1,000 to appear before the Council whenever called.54 It became clear in July that the dollar bills issued by the Congresses held at Hillsboro and Halifax had been counterfeited55 and by July 22, 1776, the Council had information that five persons concerned in the affair had been taken and jailed in Williamsburg, Virginia, one of whom was an old offender named Benjamin Woodward, who had assisted in cutting the plates for the counterfeits.56 It may be noted that Woodward was a slippery customer, who broke jail and long eluded the officers of the law, although Virginia offered a reward of four thousand dollars for his capture. He was finally taken in Georgia but not before 1791. He was arrested there again in 1796. One of his neighbors, John Young, once found in the woods near Woodward’s home several thousand pounds in counterfeit North Carolina bills, as well as tools for counterfeiting and coining.57

Not only were the four and one dollar bills imitated but also the two and a half dollar and five dollar notes. David Craig, a second lieutenant in William Temple Cole’s company, was suspected of passing these counterfeits and of being concerned in the making and engraving of the five dollar plate. As President Samuel Ashe put it in a letter to General Moore, such practices were frequent and of the most dangerous Tendency.58 Thus the newborn state was beset from the beginning by an assault on its currency from the British, from professional counterfeiters, and even from members of its own army.